01/28/2016

Every morning for as long as I remember, Oliver greets me silently to start the day. If he's just woken up he will simply move toward me and put his weight against me, sometimes hugging, sometimes just standing as he slowly separates from his dreams and solitary slumber in the comfort of my warmth. If I'm up later than him, which I almost always am, I will come into the kitchen behind where he's sitting on a stool and he will lean back and reach out to pull me to him. Next comes what I can only describe as a nuzzle, where he, for only a moment, rubs his head against my shoulder then resumes his breakfast or his show. He doesn't think about any of this. It's one of my favourite connection rituals.

01/27/2016

Last night Georgia decided she was in charge of setting the table. I was the minion. I went upstairs for a sec to go pee or some such other bother and it was incredibly annoying to the conductor of affairs. She began the countdown preceding the point where I would get in big trouble if I didn't come down: "Ten, nine, eight, I'm serious now, seven ..." I apologized profusely, then went about my assigned tasks: forks, knives, spoons, drinks (and especially adults' wine). I asked officious George what I should call her: Hostess, Lady, Manager, Director, and she stopped me dead in my tracks: "Master." No drama, and without the slightest pause.

12/02/2015

It's been a while since I've written in here. I guess I am feeling the urge because last year I wrote something every day about our family in the month of December.

So much has happened since then, but really we are also all the same. Sometimes Craig and I hear the most of what's going on with the kids at night, when they're sighing out your questions and worries and hopes. We don't always have time or energy to let them get it all said but tonight, as Craig was reading Oliver the last bits of Harry Potter (book four), I just knew Georgia needed more reassurance than usual.

The prompt was almost eerie: she said she couldn't quite breathe. I checked her out and she was fine, but as we settled into bed and I began reading I could hear and feel her taking these huge, worried breaths. "I have to," she said, "or else I will stop breathing."

Guess what? I had the same weird thing when I was little. I couldn't get my head around the involuntary nature of breathing, and it would freak me out so much I would begin almost hyperventilating. I thought it was all up to me to get every single breath in or I would die.

We had a huge talk about it and some songs, and then lots of other things came up: fear of being on Santa's "naughty list," suspicion that if you got on it you would be "out of the family" (where did she hear that? that's awful!), worries that Santa couldn't possibly load all the bags he needed to, hopes that Christmas just wouldn't come because it was all too much.

So we snuggled and focused on Christmas as just a cookie-decorating opportunity and all was right again. She took my arm, tucked it in underneath her chest, and turned over, holding tight. My God I love her.

06/11/2015

It’s on again with Oliver and his beloved, after a months-long fallow period in which she turned her attention to another boy. We have no idea what changed (O attributes it to his mad soccer moves) but the object of his affection asked him this week to once again be her boyfriend. She has not dropped the other boy as a result, we are told, but this is seemingly of no concern.

As a refresher, Girl is in Grade 2, and O is in Grade 1. This is part of a pattern. As early as three, Oliver was well aware of the allure of the older woman. At parks we would catch him gaping at six-year-old stunners, awed by their power. Even then, he had good taste. The girls he liked then, and now, have never had to be little Barbies or match their pink with more pink. Instead, they have had to rock their outfits and look a little undone. They are blessed with just the right kind of confidence, the kind that saves them from caring what other people think. These girls dart around the playground, usually trailed by a band of followers. They are neither overly nice nor overly mean. Heartbreakers.

So, yeah, Girl.

Last night before going to sleep, O asked me to tell him one of his favourite stories, the one where I’m 15 at the Dairy Queen with the guy I like: Jeff, who just happens to be 17. Jeff buys me a milkshake, brings it back to the table and sits down. I decide that the best strategy for making him love me is to bat my eyelashes. This is not as easy as you might think, because you don’t want to do it too often or you look crazy, and do want to look like you’re listening even as you’re batting. It’s a lot to coordinate—too much it turns out—since I end up pouring my milkshake down my shirt without even knowing it.

Ahahahaha! Poor mom! (Not so poor; Jeff became my first real boyfriend, and a good one at that.)

It’s time to go to sleep. No it’s not, says Oliver, not until I tell you a story. Fine.

“There’s this boy, in Grade 1, and this girl, in Grade 2, and they decide to be boyfriend [Oliver Dan, for some reason] and girlfriend [you know who]. So the boyfriend takes his girlfriend to a restaurant. She wants crouton salad with corn and tomatoes. He wants a hamburger. But the problem is that as the waitress is taking their orders, she sees how amazing and handsome Oliver Dan is, so she gets jealous and wants to be his girlfriend, too. But she can’t so instead she gets her vial of deadly poison and puts two drops on each of the boyfriend and girlfriend's meals, the salad and the burger. But what she doesn’t know is that Oliver Dan is really Cat Man and his girlfriend is Marvel Woman and they have superpowers that include not ever being able to die from poison. So the waitress was sad and they were alive.”

05/22/2015

For the past little while I've found my energy flagging, my sleep broken, and things just a bit darker than they should really appear. Yesterday O and G gently, unknowingly flicked a switch in me just by being who they are.

O was excited to go to the dentist to get his front tooth yanked out (the one that, according to biased family lore, was fractured when Craig lowered his rump onto a then-two-year-old O's head, which was resting innocently on the bathtub rim). He happily endured the needle, freezing, and pliers and thrilled in the bloody gap yielded by the process; he was infinitely older and wiser and now had the day off.

We went on a nature walk. He took me to Westboro Beach where we looked for ... anything ... and led me to secret places among treacherous bushes, checking with me always when I cried out in pain when stabbed by thorns. "Are you okay, mom? Is it a bad one?"

His spirit grew still more generous on the way home when we passed by a 60s-ish woman kneeling in the garden, working away at weeds. "I like your flexibility!" he called, and the look of surprise and delight on her face (plus the huge laugh) was pretty brilliant.

At home, things got a bit more subdued when I begged him to do some writing practice, since he is just not very concerned with legibility. I tensed up, waiting for a struggle, but he took out a piece of paper and a pen and I busied myself around the kitchen. After ten minutes or so, he handed me this:

Which reads: "Why my mom is the bust mom because shy reads me Harry Poter to put me to bead and other wies she's just a good mom. Love Oliver To Mom."

So of course I cried.

Then Georgie came home and told me I smelled like rainbow-chocolate-candy. A great start, but then things took a turn when I asked her to stop watching a show on the iPad and she threw her plate across the island onto the floor. This startled even her, so I didn't actually get mad (keep in mind her brother had had the day off, which she was more than aware of) but insisted on a little quiet time upstairs.

Upstairs, we moved back into rainbow territory. We snuggled into my bed and Georgia proceeded to kiss everything on me she could: my hair, my eyebrows, my ears, etc. And giggling all the time. She talked to me about the various affronts of her school day—who was "teasy," who was her friend, who was mean, how she hated the tacos for lunch—and I could feel the tension releasing from her body with every kiss and rant.

We went downstairs. I cooked dinner. It was incredible: chickpeas, spinach, tomatoes, onions cooked in mountains of wine, butter, and garlic. O looked up at me after a few pained bites and launched into his rejection: "Mom, I appreciate that you worked so hard to make this dinner but ..." George was a little more forceful. "NOOOOOOOO! I won't! It's disgustin'! (Cue crying, then hysteria, some more "quiet" time upstairs, and eventually, yes, cold Kraft dinner from yesterday.)

04/10/2015

Oliver may not end up being the artist we thought he might be. Instead, he may be rich, or at least marry a sugar mama. He is fascinated by money and what money can get (i.e., Pokeman cards) and quite impressive in what we call his "acquisitional" strategies. For example, there is a quirky and highly geeky comics/card store unfortunately located about five minutes away from our house, manned by a lovely guy, maybe 35 or so, who sweetly puts up with kids' nutty questions about what to get and what might or might not be in a package of Pokeman. Oliver is now insisting that this guy be invited to his birthday party.

"He's so nice!" he says innocently.

"But you don't even know his name, Oliver."

"I know but isn't it good that I still want to invite him?"

"What do you think he might give you as a present if he came to your party, O?"

"Um ..."

"Yeah."

Then yesterday, I watched JK Rowling's commencement speech at Harvard. (Have you seen it? You have to, so you can cry and swoon for 20 minutes or so. I will embed it at the end of this post.) Anyway, Rowling is releasing a book soon based on her speech, which in part impresses the importance of allowing ourselves to fail sometimes—and she's devoting the proceeds to good causes including Lumos, the foundation she created to help orphans around the world (named after the light-giving spell in the Harry Potter books). So I tried to explain the goodness of Rowling's act—the fact that she is not only making money but giving it away. The generosity, the ability of money to change the world—not just to acquire more and more. It was quite eloquent and I was sure the message had some impact on the kids.

Oliver: "So how much dollars does she have?"

Me: "Well, a lot, but that's not exactly what I was saying."

Oliver: "How much?"

Of course Oliver is much more than a future tycoon (or grand theft orchestrator). He is innocent and dreamy, too. A month or so ago, we stopped for a yummy dinner at Kaffé 1870 in Wakefield on our way back from a cottage weekend, where the chef (Jeff Hardhill) is also the singer of the alt-country band fiftymen. Oliver was so excited about this: a rock star in his midst, just out of his sight in the kitchen. So of course he pestered our server (super, super nice guy) to meet Jeff in the flesh. Now Jeff is quite shy, but he was great and obliged, and O just about fell over with happiness. But there was more: before we left, Jeff asked O to come into the kitchen, whereupon he gave him an autographed CD of the latest fiftymen album. The autograph was helpfully located in a strategic position; you can see why.

(PS—What a beautiful photograph—our server took it.)

We played that album all the way back to Ottawa. No one was allowed to talk so O could fully absorb how awesome it was, and how much he loved Jeff. He was quiet and reverent.

A couple of days after it was the Grammys and Lady Gaga had just done her medley of The Sound of Music songs. Georgia is BESOTTED with The Sound of Music, and she likes Lady Gaga too, so I was mostly talking to her when I said: "And guess who sang all the songs from The Sound of Music?"

O (hopefully): "Jeff?"

So of course O had to take the CD, with its risque cover, to school to present to his teacher so she would play it for the class. There was no possibility of our saying no to this. The playing of the CD did not happen for some inexplicable reason, but we still have it and we always will.

01/06/2015

Sometimes Georgia likes to go to Oliver's Tuesday night hockey practice, but tonight she wanted to stay home with me. The minute the boys head out the door, I announce girltime bathtime, which is always a happy event. We strip, and Georgia makes some hilarious comment about our bodies, about who has and doesn't have what, then we plunge into the water, which admittedly is a bit hotter than George might like and just perfect for me. Then come the bubbles. Lavender, ginger, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle (don't tell Oliver), and some perfumed bit of nothing they put into a bottle and sell at Christmas for ridiculous parents like me.

The boys are at the arena by now, after a drive across town in witchtit-freezing weather. O is on the ice. Craig is not. He is in the grey, barren gulleys alongside it, leaning against the scratched-up plexiglass watching six-year-olds sometimes glide, often trip across the ice into each other for an hour. Wobbly, triumphant pucks sometimes land in the net, often aided by a complete absence of goalie.

I am not in the arena. Now the bubbles are about at eye-level, and George is armed. She has three washcloths, a toothbrush, and various lotions and scrubs, and it is time for my treatment. Sitting, I lean forward. Standing, she begins to apply her salves. After each, a washcloth is laid gently across my back, arranged just so. It must sit for roughly 15 seconds, then is peeled away for either toothbrushing or scrubbing of my skin, then slow pouring of warm water to wash it all away. I sigh, protest a little about my hair getting wet, and am told I am a "silly goose." "It's ok, baby, it's ok," she says, tut tutting about me as if I am a fussy infant. So I quiet down, and succumb to another round of treatments. Sometimes I ask if she is cold, but she says she isn't, and of course in my condition I can only believe.

After some time, the boys come home. The girls are fragrant and have made the beds for the boys. Yes they have (what?). We head upstairs, get into PJs (except for Georgia who insists on a skirt), and we fly under the covers in Oliver's room. Within minutes, someone has farted. George cries (sensitive nose) and believes it to be Oliver. She calls him stinky. Oliver bursts into tears, tired from the day and the exertion of hockey. Craig and I admonish George and tell her not to call her brother stinky, and Craig whisks her up to head to her own room. She screams at the top of her lungs, "You a stinky pants, Oliver!" Oliver, Craig, and I burst into hysteria, and Georgia will now scream for many more minutes. But with Craig.

01/02/2015

Man, you whir. You wake up early, can't wait for the day, never stop, never get cold, can't stop exclaiming about every single thing that delights or affronts you. You are exhausting and thrilling. Tonight, at bedtime, I called on your obsession, Pokeman, to settle you down: count your EXs, I said, put them in order, think of their names. Eventually your breathing slowed. You nestled closer. Magical comforter. Humming fan. Perfect warmth. You went, but with me. Head nuzzled in my neck, leg resting on mine, cheeks and even the roots of your hair still pulsing with the energy of the day. I stayed still for a while, let it sink in. Waited till tiny spasms surprised your limbs, then released them still further. Then I searched out your hands. Hands I don't think of in the day, hands now closing in on the size of my own. I traced them. Up and down. Up. Down. And again. And again.

12/27/2014

Merry Christmas! It was a wonderful one, despite your dad and I getting the brutal cold that raced through the city this December. Oliver, you came to the rescue when on Christmas Eve morning, you woke up early to go downstairs to make us these “Owl Face” fruit plates (passion fruit as noses). You were so proud, and hugged us a million times as we ate our bounty.

One of the presents you guys gave to your dad Christmas morning was homemade shaving cream with coconut and jojoba oil, shea butter, and peppermint and rosemary essence, sealed with closed-eyed kisses and wishes. That there is some pure goodness. Also it is the craftiest thing I have ever done in my whole entire life.

On Christmas Eve, GG called to say that according to NORAD tracking, Santa was well on his way. Georgia, you are not Santa’s biggest fan (you’re more a reindeer girl) so you were happy to misunderstand “tracking” as “trapping.” "Where did you trap Santa, GG?” you asked excitedly. “In a jail?”

Come to think of it, George, O's drawing a little earlier in December might have helped with your suspicion of Santa:

Just a guess.

We gave you lots of art supplies for Christmas, but I will admit that I had a vested interest in getting them into our house; I adore drawing with you. Last night I made this guy. I’m pretty proud of him, whatever he is (a ghost?). As Georgia says when she spots someone kind, "I like his face."

O, your present to Georgia was a tiny stuffie dog she had seen at Tiggywinkle’s and fallen in love with, and G, you gave O a set of Pokeman cards he had wanted for ages. You were thrilled with each other and your excellent choices.

It was a wonderful Christmas, despite our stuffy noses and the nearly total absence of snow. I think the reindeer thought so, too.

xo,

Mom.

PS: Georgia, I had a great night with you a few days before Christmas. We lay in bed doing rhymes and then you stopped, took my face in your hands, and said “Mum-mum, I love you so much I could gobble you up.” You asked me to snuggle closer, closer, closer so you could fall asleep. Mum-mum is the best name ever.

PPS: Oliver, I am so into your tree-sprouting Santa. And everything about him.